Boost Your Interview IQ (Paperback)

by Carole Martin (Author) "If you take the Interview IQ Test, you will have a measure of how you size up when answering some of the most frequently asked..." (more)
Key Phrases: The Mediocre Answer, The Strongest Answer Boost Your Interview

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

How to become an interview genius and land the job of your dreams

If a job interview is an oral exam in which job seeker must give the right answers to a set of questions in order to get hired, then this is the ultimate guide to acing the exam. Written by The Interview Coach at Monster.com, Boost Your Interview IQ offers an enjoyable, interactive way to prepare for and succeed at any job interview.

Combining the features of a step-by-step guide and a skill-building workbook, it:

• Shows job seekers how to craft job-winning answers to the 50 key questions interviewers ask
• Features an Interview IQ Test, interview skill-building exercises, and other interview aptitude boosting tools
• Teaches candidates how to shape their experiences into stories that showcase their skills, knowledge, and personalities
• Offers proven techniques for acing the behavioral interview--the popular new wave interviewing strategy

About the Author

Carole Martin is America's best-known interview coach. She has been interviewed for Self magazine and the Wall Street Journal's Career Journal.com and she has been extensively quoted in the New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Woman's Day, Smart Money, Entrepreneur, and other magazines. She is the Interview Coach at Monster.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (December 17, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071425470
• ISBN-13: 978-0071425476
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #132,877 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #77 in

  Books > Business & Investing > Job Hunting & Careers > Interviewing

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Advice, But Needs Wider Range of Examples, April 27, 2005

By	Karen Wheless "Book lover and organizing fiend" (Pearl River, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is one of the few interviewing books that covers the new trend, "behavioral interviews". Martin gives specific examples and then explains why particular answers are best, which is very effective. She also gives some helpful advice about behavioral interviews in general.

However, her examples are almost all drawn from marketing, sales and management. For someone in these fields, this is probably a plus, but for someone in a different field, the examples became repetitive after a while. Even though her advice can be applied to any job, it would have helped to have some examples from different types of jobs - technical jobs in particular. Even though more people are working in technical fields, books about interviewing don't often address their particular problems and questions.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars With a little imagination, you can ace the interview, July 14, 2005

By	David Field (Merrimac, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I worked at a Fortune 500 computer company that used behavioral interviewing (where the interviewer says "Tell me about a time . . .").

If you read this book and Carole's examples, you can see how to present your experience in a way that impresses. My wife is a book editor and although the book doesn't cover this particular career, we went over her experiences and created a way to talk about them.

Unless you were a corporate drone who never though outside the box (or even much inside it) you can point out the ways where you added a little extra to the way you did the job. If you can't think of such remarks you're just appear to be a faceless job applicant who has no worthwhile features, no matter what your real experiences.

The way to use this book is to read all the examples, and especially take note of the best and second-best way of giving an answer. Eventually you'll learn what to say for any interview.

I'd rather not have to say something like "Oh yes, I always worked hard at my last job" (which is not 100 percent true and sounds phoney). I'd rather use the behavioral technique and say that a co-worker went in on a Saturday to make up a couple of hours, found that a huge amount of work had been dumped on us, and split the work by e-mailing half of it to me at home, which took up most of my time on that weekend (which actually was true).

I know which one would impress an employer.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read before going to your interview!, March 15, 2004

By A Customer

As a person who has spent many years as a professional in corporate America and having been interviewed and been part of the interview process many times, I can think of no better way to prepare than to read Carole Martin's interview book.

Interviewing is basically a structured question and answer session. The person who responds best to the many questions posed by the interviewer will most likely get the job.

There are few if any questions in the interview process that are not discussed in Carole's book. The questions are presented in a precise, easy to understand manner, followed by answers ranging from the strong or the best answer to the weakest or worst answer.

If I had just one book on my shelf to help me prepare for an interview, I would easily choose this book.